AskMason Wordpress Plugin - Rating, Reviews, Demo & Download
Plugin Description
AskMason adds a small “ask” box to a page. A visitor types a question and gets an answer drawn from that page’s own text, with the section it came from. When the page does not cover the question, the assistant says so and points the visitor to a contact you set, rather than guessing.
It is built for long reference pages that people would rather ask than scroll: a trip guide, a program, a policy, a product manual.
How it works
- The plugin reads the page’s text as it is stored (Elementor pages from their design data, other pages from their block content) and keeps a snapshot. It never renders the page, so nothing another plugin would show only to some visitors can reach the assistant: a block from another plugin that renders at view time is left out along with everything inside it. The snapshot refreshes when the page is saved and before any question if it has gone stale.
- Each question is sent to the Anthropic Messages API with the whole page as a cached prompt, so a long page costs one full read per cache window rather than one per question. A document budget (200,000 characters by default, on the Model tab) bounds what one page can cost; a longer page is cut at a paragraph break and the cut is shown on the page’s edit screen. Supplementary notes are capped at 20,000 characters.
- You can add “supplementary notes” on the page’s edit screen: facts the assistant may use that are not on the page. The notes are not shown on the page, but the assistant may quote them in an answer, so they are not a place for anything a visitor should not read. Where the page and the notes disagree, the page wins.
- Only people who can already view the page can ask about it. A page password counts. You can narrow that to logged-in users or roles, or plug in your own gate.
- Daily limits per visitor, per address, and site-wide keep the bill bounded, counted on the database so they hold under concurrent traffic and cache eviction. A per-minute cap and a cap on questions in flight with the model absorb bursts without spending the day’s allowance. A monthly token budget is the backstop for the month: when the tokens the provider has reported since the first of the month reach it, the ask box leaves every page until the next month.
- Every question, answer, and outcome is logged for the site administrator, with filters and a CSV export, and purged after a retention period you choose.
Bring your own key
AskMason never carries a key of its own. This plugin sends each question to Anthropic’s API under your own account: enter your Anthropic API key on the Model tab beside the model you choose (one Save stores both), or define ASKMASON_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY (or Anthropic’s own ANTHROPIC_API_KEY) in wp-config.php; a constant takes precedence over the screen. You are billed by Anthropic for the questions your visitors ask; set a spend limit on its dashboard as well as the plugin’s daily limits and the monthly token budget. The page text rides with every question and is cached by Anthropic under a lifetime you set, so a long page costs one full read per cache window rather than one per question.
The paid edition, sold separately (see Editions), can use OpenAI, xAI, Google, Mistral, DeepSeek, or an OpenAI-compatible endpoint of your own instead, each under its own key.
Two display modes
- Hybrid (default): a compact ask bar where the shortcode sits. The first question opens a conversation panel, docked in the corner on desktop and full screen on phones. Minimizing it leaves a small tab in the corner that pops it back out; the tab can be dismissed, after which a Resume link on the ask bar brings the conversation back.
- Inline: the whole conversation in place.
Editions
The free plugin is the whole product for one page on one site with an Anthropic key: the ask box in either display mode, the two Mason looks, supplementary notes, access rules, daily limits, the question log, and the privacy tools. Nothing in it is switched off or greyed out. An optional “AskMason by Auth/Technic” credit can be enabled on the Appearance tab in every edition; it is off by default.
Paid licenses are sold through Freemius (AskMason > Upgrade in the admin menu opens the pricing page; nothing is sent to Freemius until you buy or activate a license). Starter adds the style controls (colors, corner radius, the docked panel, custom CSS, and adopting your theme’s look), the other providers (OpenAI, xAI, Google, Mistral, DeepSeek, and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint), CSV export of the log, and settings export and import. Pro adds, for up to five sites, answers from the whole site, the Content gaps report and digest, per-page overrides, and the outgoing webhook. Agency covers unlimited sites and network activation. A license is annual; when it lapses, the paid features keep working for 14 days, after which the assistant keeps answering on the provider you configured while the other paid features turn off until the license is renewed. Terms, privacy, support, and refunds: https://authtechnic.com/askmason/terms, /privacy, /support, /refunds.
Multisite
AskMason can be activated on one site of a network or for the whole network. Each site stands alone: its own Anthropic key, settings, snapshots, question log, daily limits, and retention, so each site’s questions are billed to that site’s key. A network-wide activation sets every site up, a site added later is set up when it is created, and uninstalling cleans every site.
Shortcode
[askmason] places the ask box. Attributes:
title="..."overrides the assistant name for that placement.mode="inline"ormode="hybrid"overrides the display mode setting for that placement.
Several placements on one page share one conversation in hybrid mode. In inline mode there is one placement per page; a second inline placement is left empty.
Styling
The widget ships with two branded base styles: Mason (gold and ink, hard shadows, square corners, its own fonts) and Mason, quiet (the same design with ink in place of the gold, which stays only in the logo, so it sits on any site). Switch the base style to “adopt” and it takes the page’s link color for the button and links, the page’s text color and font, and the page background behind the panel. The conversation panel can be a floating card in the corner or a sidebar docked to the right edge.
AskMason > Settings > Style overrides that with an accent color, text on accent, text color, panel background, corner radius, and a Custom CSS box applied inside the widget. Each color has a picker, a chip strip shows every color the widget will use and where it comes from, and a live sample of the ask box updates as you change things. Setting an accent also sets the text on it (by contrast) and the tint of the visitor’s turn; setting the text color also sets the muted text and border tints.
A theme or Elementor stylesheet overrides both by setting custom properties on the widget’s host classes, .askmason-widget and .askmason-panel-host: --askmason-accent, --askmason-accent-fg, --askmason-fg, --askmason-bg, --askmason-muted, --askmason-border, --askmason-user-bg, --askmason-radius, --askmason-font.
External services
This plugin sends data to the following services. Nothing is sent to Auth/Technic, the plugin’s maker, at any time.
Anthropic API (https://api.anthropic.com). This is what answers the questions: the plugin has no model of its own. When a visitor asks a question on a page where AskMason is enabled, the plugin sends to Anthropic, over HTTPS, the text of that page as stored (and the page’s supplementary notes if you wrote any), the visitor’s question, the earlier turns of that visitor’s conversation on the page (up to six), the assistant instructions, and your Anthropic API key as the request credential. Nothing is sent before a question is asked, and nothing else is sent: not the visitor’s address, cookie, or account. Anthropic’s handling of API data is governed by its Commercial Terms of Service (https://www.anthropic.com/legal/commercial-terms) and Privacy Policy (https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy). The paid edition can send the same request to a different provider you choose instead.
Freemius (https://freemius.com). The plugin includes the Freemius SDK, which handles licensing and updates for the paid edition. In this free plugin it runs in anonymous mode: it shows no opt-in and sends nothing on activation or during use. It contacts Freemius only if you open AskMason > Upgrade, which loads Freemius’s pricing page (sending the plugin’s product id and version, and your site’s URL, so the page can show the plans), or if you buy or activate a paid license, which sends your site URL, the plugin and WordPress versions, and the license key so the license and updates can be served. Freemius’s Terms of Service (https://freemius.com/terms/) and Privacy Policy (https://freemius.com/privacy/) apply to those exchanges.
Privacy
Questions and answers are stored in your database for the retention period you set (180 days by default) and are visible to administrators. Visitors may type personal details into questions; mention the log in your privacy notice and keep the retention short.
Entries recorded with a WordPress user id (the “Record user id” setting) are covered by WordPress’s privacy tools: Tools > Export Personal Data returns that account’s questions and answers, and Erase Personal Data blanks them and clears the user id while keeping the entry for usage counts. Entries without a user id cannot be attributed to a person by the plugin, since addresses are never stored and the visitor identifier is random; they are removed by the retention purge, or one at a time on the Usage & log tab.
Visitor addresses are never stored. Daily limits use a salted hash that changes every day. Behind a reverse proxy or CDN, list its addresses under Trusted proxies on the Access and limits tab so the per-address limit sees visitors rather than the proxy; only the address the listed proxy appended is believed. The WordPress user id is stored on log entries only if you turn that on.
A conversation stays in the visitor’s browser tab until the tab is closed or New conversation is used, and after a login or logout it is shown only to the account that had it.
Anonymous visitors receive a cookie (askmason_session) so the per-visitor limit can work. It holds a random identifier and nothing else, and lasts 30 days, so it is a persistent identifier rather than a session cookie; the daily limit counts against it.
The Mason fonts ship with the plugin and are served from your own site; the plugin makes no request to a font service or to any third party other than the model provider you chose. The Fonts switch on the Appearance tab uses the theme font instead.
Each question, with the page text and any notes, is sent to the model provider you chose under your account and that provider’s terms.
Nothing is sent to Auth/Technic when a visitor asks a question. What leaves the site, and to whom, is listed under External services above. The full policy is at https://authtechnic.com/askmason/privacy.
Screenshots
The ask box on a page, with a question answered from the page’s own text and the section it came from named.
General: the assistant’s name, intro line, and the contact it offers when a page does not cover a question.
Model: the provider, its models, and the API key, saved together.
Appearance: the display mode and the two Mason looks; a paid license adds the style controls.
Placement: the shortcode, and the enabled pages.
Access and limits: who may ask, the daily and per-minute limits, and the monthly token budget.
Privacy: retention, the user id switch, and the personal data tools.
Usage and log: this month’s tokens, today’s questions, and every question with its outcome.
About: the edition, this installation, and where to get help.
